Last week we were having a leisurely walk in Brockwell Park, an estate set out in the early nineteenth century, complete with mansion, walled gardens and huge greenhouses, and now a park bordered by Brixton and Tulse Hill in South London. Back in the eighties I remember brief walks there with the dog between school runs and it wasn’t a place to linger. Now the elegant lido has a gym and café, there are tennis courts and a couple of fantastic playgrounds and the old greenhouses are being used by the local community. There are plenty of mature trees and there is some interesting landscaping around the duck ponds. We were admiring the grasses looking their best in the autumn sunshine when we rounded a corner and lo and behold, there was a municipal Lambeth truck being piled high with said grasses, leaving… bare earth. By now, being a public park, they might have been replaced with some sort of winter bedding but I thought at the time that it really was an example of too much tidying, too soon.

Time to rake up those autumn leaves

Time to rake up those autumn leaves

  • words:

Veg Out

Jo Arnell unearths all you need to know about planting veg this May May is a fantastic month for growing vegetables. The frosts should have passed (but do watch the weather forecast just in case!), the soil is warm, the...

A rose by any other name

Jo Arnell explores the magic of hellebores, the flowering stars of the early spring garden In the early days of the spring when not much blooms, we are clutching at straws – and I’ll agree that anything that might resemble...

Frozen Scents

Jo Arnell brings pockets of joy to the winter garden with her recommendations for fine fragrances The bleak end of winter can bring the coldest weather, the gloomiest skies and the sinking feeling that spring is never coming back. This...